Using Schenkerian analytical techniques, this project aims to to identify and categorize the voice-leading patterns commonly found in tonal music of the period, and to characterize their particular roles within the larger structures of eighteenth-century formal processes. Thus it investigates the extent and pervasiveness of voice-leading patterning in tonal music.
The great composers of the eighteenth century--Bach and Handel, Haydn and Mozart--as well as their lesser contemporaries, all used similar means of organizing the harmonies of music into coherent and expressive units that can be termed voice-leading patterns. A voice-leading pattern, as defined here and employed in this context, is a conjunction of a specific melodic progression and a specific bass progression with a specific harmony, the whole traversing at least three successive tonal events or harmonies. Schenker's Ursatz is a deep level voice-leading pattern, and indeed it is Schenker's notion of structural levels that makes the identification of such patterns possible at any levels below the surface itself. Such voice-leading patterns occur for the most part at foreground and higher middleground levels. They can be prolongations or progressions.
This research project sets out to identify and categorize the voice-leading patterns commonly found in tonal music of the period, and to characterize their particular roles within the larger structures of eighteenth-century formal processes. It will investigate the extent and pervasiveness of voice-leading patterning in tonal music. The first main objective of the project is to codify a taxonomy of tonal gestures, a "lingua franca" of the tonal world, within the foreground and higher middleground levels. While this task is dependent upon a Schenkerian analytic basis, its goal is to establish common aspects of structure among pieces and composers, rather than to highlight the differences that individuate each work. Such an objective is ideologically opposed to Schenker's goals of revealing artistic uniqueness. Yet this method in fact complements Schenker's work by providing a context within which to evaluate the aspects of uniqueness that do indeed characterize the great masterworks. Indeed, by demonstrating the extent to which compositions share common features, we are in a better position to ascertain and assess those aspects that are unique and worthy of special study.
The initial methodology is a rudimentary analysis of a representative selection of small-scale works which will provide an initial corpus of voice-leading patterns. The appended example, a brief minuet by Mozart, illustrates [not enabled at present]. The first analysis illustrates the structural and motivic features of the minuet in a fairly conventional Schenkerian manner, and includes all the structural levels. It thus shows the connection of and relationship among elements and levels. Its great value is in showing how all the elements work together to form a unity in a single work The examples that follow in the lower two lines, however, abstract from the music a total of six isolated voice-leading patterns that account for the voice-leading and harmonic progressions of the entire composition at a single structural level They do not say as much about the piece, but they say a lot about what comprises the piece. It is evident that two of these patterns are repeated in transposition: b) = e); c) = f). The premise of this stage of work is that a multitude of samples of music will yield only a limited repertoire of such patterns.
The second major purpose of the project is to demonstrate how voice-leading patterns combine together to form coherent sense-units over larger spans of time. It seeks to answer such questions as: What patterns typically occur at the beginning, middle, end of tonal compositions? After an initial voice-leading pattern, a, which pattern(s), b, c, . . ., usually follow? Which patterns typically facilitate modulatory passages? How do such voice-leading patterns connect and integrate with sequential patterns, especially within developmental areas? Do such patterns resolve into groups of patterns that characterize larger musical units? Even in connection with the small example by Mozart, it can recognized that a) is a frequently found opening pattern, and c) is a frequently found closing pattern in the repertoire. It is anticipated that as the project searches out a large number of examples a limited number of such patterns will be found that reappear over and over, and probably often in similar relationships. Indeed, preliminary work is already beginning to show such results, and to indicate that some of these voice-leading patterns typically form identifiable chains that span larger structural units. Thus it is anticipated that the patterns identified and collated at the foreground and higher middleground levels may lead to the recognition of a vocabulary of chains of interconnected voice-leading patterns.
A third goal of the study, really an outgrowth of the previous two, is to assess the manner in which these voice-leading patterns and chains of patterns coalesce into deeper structural patterns. In other words, this third stage will be an attempt to reconcile the uni-levelled basis of these foreground voice-leading patterns with Schenkerian notions of structural levels. The Mozart example at least makes clear the direct connection between voice-leading patterns that occur at a given foreground level and the ultimate analysis of structural levels that provides a complete and unified context for these patterns. In the effort of interpreting how voice-leading patterns connect and combine, it is inevitable that cognizance will also be made of how and why such patternings are broken, distorted, or otherwise manipulated for the sake of other structural or motivic reasons, or indeed for higher artistic purposes.
The theory of voice-leading progressions presented here aspires to extend Schenker's work into a systematic and thoroughgoing exposé of structural patterning in tonal music at the foreground and to some extent middleground levels, and ultimately to provide a systematic account of patterning at and between all levels of tonal structure. In general terms, then, the goal of the investigation is to determine the extent and pervasiveness of repetitive patterning in voice-leading in a representative corpus of tonal music. This project, by its nature, will necessarily entail a consideration of several philosophical issues that arise, such as: What role if any do such tonal patterns play in the compositional process? What is the relationship between such patterns and stylistic aspects? How systematically do such patterns relate to concepts of deeper middleground and background structure, as envisioned by Schenker?
A number of recent theorists have worked on related aspects of structure and patterning, but this project is unique in its objective of providing a systematic and complete enumeration of the patterns in common use through analysis of a large body of works. In this context, the paper will consider related studies such as Lerdahl and Jackendoff A Generative Theory of Tonal Music(1983) (generative rather than empirical), Komar Linear-derived Harmony (1992) (pedagogical and generative), Gjerdingen, A Classic Turn of Phrase: Music and the Psychology of Convention (1988), and Narmour The Analysis and Cognition of Basic Melodic Structures (1990-1992) (the latter two stemming from Meyer Explaining Music (1973), and relating more to style and expression that to voice-leading structure).
One intended result of this study is that musicologists and theorists may find it easier to distinguish between aspects of style and language in the repertoire, which in turn will help to separate the commonplace from the original in their evaluation of the significance of specific composers and genres. Should this approach in time enter the classroom, it may be possible for students to have the opportunity to learn about tonal harmony not only through the traditional method of chords and harmonic progressions, but also through a more syntactical understanding of the role of voice-leading patterns in music.
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